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 Trading Card Game Tips from fans

basic deck bulding tips by change - Change


What follows is aimed at new players, or a parent helping out young kids.
If you're experienced, wait for the "advanced" one on things like
using frequency counts to know when you can expect to draw what and how
to predict what your opponent has in hand...

So, let's begin at the beginning. Your deck needs to be legal.
That means at least 40 cards and compliant with the banned,
restricted and semi-restricted list for whatever format you're
playing in. Now that that's out of the way...

Your chances of winning will be much higher if you play a deck you
like playing. That way you can put in the effort you need to learn
the deck's tempo, playtest against different decktypes, decide what
you need to develop as a side deck and so on.

THE BASICS

The Most Important Thing: a clearly defined win condition. This can
be as simple as manage board and hand, pummel opponent until LP are
at 0. It can be a little less straightforward, like burn (wiping out
your opponent's LP thru effects), deckout/mill, Exodia, Final
Countdown, F-I-N-A-L, Last Turn, etc.

Step 2: Know what level you are competing at. And what your budget
is. For example, the level of competition will probably be less
high at the local store's 12-and-under league than at a Shonen Jump
Championship (SJC). Certain cards that play a big role in standard
Regionals and SJC decks, like Cyber Dragon and DD Assailant, normally
require pretty serious cash to get ahold of, whether by buying enuff
cards you have good "trade bait" or by purchasing outright. But if
you are competing on a smaller stage, you can probably succeed pretty
well without them.

Step 3: Look for good examples of the deck you want to play. Copying
it card-for-card may not be something u have the money for. And is
unlikely to work hugely well, since the odds that you play exactly
like the deck's creator are low. And the prevailing mix of dominant
decks and play trends (aka metagame) also varies from location to location.
But seeing what sorts of things work for other people is good in giving
you a base to build off of. Metagame.com carries accounts of Shonen
Jump championships, including winning deck lists. This site here and
others carry tournament reports that will help you see decks and how
they play. The forums on this site or other places will carry deck
building forums, with deck lists, strategy, advice on how to adjust
the deck. Lots of good stuff.

Step 4: Look for a win condition with powerful ways to search out the
cards you need that don't slow down your deck by forcing you to run lots
of cards. This is a common theme in most trading card games. This is why
Warriors (Reinforcements of the Army), Zombies (Pyramid Turtle) and
Gravekeepers (GK Spy) are common sights. Why many decks run "searchers"
like Giant Rat and Mystic Tomato. And why Sangan shows up in almost every
top-flight deck. And part of why Spellcasters are more highly regarded
now--Magician's Circle gives them a powerful search card. Getting to the
cards you need fast promotes "Consistency", which is the single biggest
factor in making a deck competitive at high level competitions where you
can generally only afford to lose one match all day if you want to get
into the hallowed "Top Eight".

Step 5: Deciding on the cards to help you achieve your win condition.
For example, a deck that aims to win by attacking and has a lack of
Spell/Trap (S/T) removal, monster removal and good attacking monsters
won't go far. Some Pot of Avarice decks run into problems because
they lack the attacking side of things. A burn deck without enough
burn or an Exodia deck without cards to get to Exodia won't do well,
either. Make sure the cards chosen contribute to your win condition.
Using lots of cards that remove monsters from the game counters Pot
of Avarice. Using Jinzo in a trap-heavy deck or Spell Canceller in
a spell heavy deck is working against yourself.

Step 6: Deck size. Competitive decks aim to be at 40 cards or barely
over, because the odds of you drawing the half-dozen most powerful
cards in a given format drop sharply as your deck gets bigger. Look at
the list of cards you came up with in step 5 and look to get it to about
40-42 cards. The rulebook actually gives pretty good advice on how to
go about that.

INTERMEDIATE STUFF

Step 7: Card Ratios. This refers to how many Monsters/Spells/Traps
you run in your deck. For the first time in a long time, people are
back close to what the rule book's advocated all along: 20 monsters,
10 spells, 10 traps in a 40 card deck. Of the 20 monsters, almost all
are non-tribute, with the exception of Cyber Dragon (which frequently
is non-tribute) and maybe some Mobius or occasionally another Monarch
or another excellent 1-tribute monster. 2-tribute monsters are not
routinely played in highly competitive decks, because you have to make
a big effort to bring them out and they're wiped out as easy as any other
monster by Smashing Ground, Dark Hole, DD Warrior Lady, DD Assailant,
Sakuretsu Armor, etc. If you are playing a relatively standard deck and
find yourself deviating far from the following numbers, you may need
to look at your build and think why that's happened. There are times to
change things up -- for example, a deck using lots of Royal Decrees
should run less traps and a "Soul Control" deck should use more tributes.

* 18-20 monsters with no more than 1-2 tributes that aren't cyber dragon
* 10-14 spells, with very few being continuous or equips
* 8-12 traps

Step 8: Understand the Meta. An experienced player can probably assemble
a winning Warrior Toolbox decklist or Pot of Avarice Decklist or
Gravekeepers decklist in under 10 minutes. Knowing what you'll face makes
it much easier to decide what you need to compete effectively.
Understanding play trends is also big. Without Pot of Greed, BLS and other
game breaking cards, there are no sure-fire "advantage" generators right
now so people are looking to cards that pay for themselves by wiping out
an opponent's card, which is considered a one-for-one (141). This way,
you stay more or less even with your opponent and don't get overwhelmed.
If you do draw a card that can wipe out multiple opponent's cards at
once, you can follow that up by pressuring your opponent until you can
take their LP down to zero.

Step 9: Understand basic card Advantage. A lot of people talk in "+1"
or "-1" or "141" terms. This is describing a card's interactions with
other cards. The bigger the plus the better, normally. So, for example,
you play Smashing Ground and wipe out your opponent's monster. If it's
a non-tribute monster, Smashing Ground just payed for itself, so it's
a "141". Since you can play multiple spells and traps per turn, but
are only allowed one normal summon or set, "141" with spells and traps
is actually a slight advantage. That's why cards like Smashing Ground,
Fissure, Sakuretsu Armor, Widespread Ruin, Trap Hole, Bottomless Trap
Hole, etc are so popular right now. This is also part of why people
like searchers, even if the searcher is destroyed (-1) it fetches
another monster (+1) and so maintains "board presence". People could
write books on this so I'll leave off, but it's probably the single
concept that most separates beginners from (winning) experienced players.
In a nutshell, the concept is that if you use your cards more efficiently
than the other player does, eventually they run out of options and,
since there're not that many cards that allow for an instant comeback,
you can press your advantage on to victory. So, examine cards for your
deck in light of this. If I get around to the "Advanced" portion of
things, I'll explain how to reconsider some popular cards from a total
card advantage perspective.

Step 10: Playtest. This is the yugioh equivalent of "if at first you don't
succeed". Now that you've come up with your deck's win condition, made
sure it's the right size and thought about how it matches up with the
metagame in terms of decks and card advantage, put it to the test.
Different decks play differently in terms of how fast you want to play
out your hand, what cards to play in what order when you draw them and
so on. Some people (including me) call this deck tempo. It takes a while
to get used to so don't expect immediate success. Playtesting will also
show you if there are parts of your deck that are consistently weak or
consistently strong. And show you what you need to do to build a sidedeck
to help carry you to victory even more regularly (but sidedecks are a
whole 'nother thing). After playtesting a bit, reconsider your deck from
the earlier steps and think about ways to adjust the card mix. Do so and
then playtest some more. Hopefully, you'll have a lean, mean yugioh
machine in no time.

Wishing u every success

Change, aka nurgling@yahoo.com